Jamie Oliver creates a range of amazing, simple dishes to make al fresco
dining a treat.

Type: Documentary

Languages: English

Status: Ended

Runtime: 25 minutes

Premier: 2012-07-02

Jamie's Summer Food Rave Up - A Midsummer Night's Rave - Netflix

A Midsummer Night's Rave is a film adapted from Shakespeare's A
Midsummer Night's Dream released in 2002. The film stars Corey Pearson,
Lauren German, Andrew Keegan, Chad Lindberg, and Sunny Mabrey; and was
directed by Gil Cates Jr.. It is set at a rave rather than a forest, as
in the original. The film received little attention from professional
movie critics, but is considered a success with teen audiences, and has
been used as an exemplar for a category of movies (the “McShakespeare”,
an example of McDonaldization) in more academic publications.

Jamie's Summer Food Rave Up - Reception - Netflix

The movie received a 70% “Audience Score” on review aggregator site
Rotten Tomatoes, but has not received enough reviews from professional
movie critics to be assigned an overall “Freshness” score. Among the few
professional reviews is Joe Leydon's for Variety in 2003. The review is
generally negative, but highlights some actor performances and the
directorial choice to omit the original Shakespearean dialog. Overall he
thinks it “... plays less like witty romantic comedy than a watered-down
(and dumbed-down) version of ...Go. [The director] goes for cheap laughs
by encouraging actors to chew on the scenery—and each other—without
worrying about such niceties as narrative logic and character
consistency.” His summary of its viability as a film is that “[it] isn't
likely to be a fave-rave with critics or auds.” Mark Jenkins, in a
review for the Washington City Paper, sums it up as: “Although rendered
in suitably neon hues, the movie is not a visual triumph; its low-budget
seams show, and an attempt at a Trainspotting-like aside is weak. The
film's principal virtues are its attractive cast, sprightly pace,
thumping soundtrack, and happy-face take on young romance. The love drug
is not required for viewing, but any cynics in the audience will
probably wish they had taken something.” A more positive take appears in
the book Visual Media for Teens (2009), which in its chapter on “'Issues
of Identity' Films” recommends A Midsummer Night's Rave with the
description “This film really manages to stick close to the original
story in a delightful retelling of a classic play that appeals to
teens.” R. S. White, however, in Shakespeare's Cinema of Love: A Study
in Genre and Influence (2016), describes it by saying that “... [the]
farcical A Midsummer Night's Rave (2002), [is] a conscious pastiche of
Shakespeare's play, [and] shows the irrational events being caused by
consciousness-altering drugs and the air of psychedelic fantasy created
by a musical rave party.” Similarly, Joss Whedon as Shakespearean
Moralist: Narrative Ethics of the Bard and the Buffyverse (2014) lists
it among the films it considers “a hit with the teens” in a chapter
exploring films that employ allusions to and loose adaptations of
Shakespeare, as distinct from the more strict adaptations of Orson
Welles, Laurence Olivier, and Franco Zeffirelli. In an article for
Tor.com, Leah Schnelbach and Natalie Zutter lists it as among
“Shakespeare Adaptations That Best Speak to Teens”, and concludes: “If
any of you want to revisit a certain best night of your life subset of
1990s culture, this is your Shakespeare adaptation.” In 2016, Kristen
Stegemoeller, writing for Paper, listed it as number 8 in a list of
“Shakespeare's Teen Movies” based solely on a plot description found on
Wikipedia. And in a 2015 article “In Defense of Go As A Rave Movie”
(referring to Go (1999)), Genna Rivieccio describes A Midsummer Night's
Rave as among the “classics” of rave movies.